Hustai National Park is a place of serenity, beauty, and preservation: famed worldwide as the reintroduction site of the Takhi, better known as Przewalski’s horse. Once extinct in the wild, the Takhi has successfully been reintroduced into the mountainous steppe region of Mongolia
Hustai National Park is a relatively newly founded park in Tov Aimag, Mongolia; the park lies within the boundaries of three sums, Altanbulag, Bayankhangai, and Argalant. Located about one hundred kilometers directly west of Ulaanbaatar, Hustai National Park, the fifty thousand six hundred and twenty-hectare area is the newly founded breeding ground for the wild Takhi. Once extinct in the wild, the Takhi have reclaimed their native land thanks to the efforts of a few determined people financed by the Dutch government. Hustai was established as a Nature Reserve in 1993 and following the reintroduction of the Takhi was upgraded to a National Park in 1998, which included a few boundary changes such as the addition of Moltsog Els, a 2.5-kilometer in diameter area of sand dunes. The plan for the reintroduction of the Takhi was to find an area where there was potential for the pastureland to re-grow and would therefore be sufficient to feed, not only the Takhi, but also a number of other wild species.
The area in and around Hustai National Park was chosen for this ‘green grass revolution’ for a number of reasons. From 1993 to 2003 the MACNE, (Mongolian Association for the Conservation of Nature and Environment which was the first “nature conservation non-governmental organization”, was deemed responsible for park management. After 2003 the Hustai National Park Trust NGO was made accountable for the park’s management. The Hustai National Park Trust had four main goals. To protect the Hustai National Park ecosystem. To reintroduce Przewalski horses and let them live in wild without any human involvement. 3) To develop eco-tourism. 4) To develop a buffer zone area around Hustai National Park.”
Currently, Hustai National Park works with the herders in the buffer zone to establish groups for Community Based Tourism activities and products. Such products include felt and rope making, and tanneries. The park runs seminars for the locals so they can learn these practices for free and then implement them to generate income. Hustai in turn uses this to promote tourism to the park and oftentimes in the summer will send tourists to stay with local families to give them the “real nomadic experience”.
